By Charlie Coë For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 06:28 EDT, 20 July 2021 | Updated: 08:13 EDT, 20 July 2021

A conspiracy theorist's video making wild claims Covid-19 tests used in Australia will 'alter your DNA' and cause cancer has been completely debunked.

Similar social media posts from around the world have been factchecked multiple times and their claims proven unequivocally false, with not a single piece of evidence that such medical procedures cause cancer or any damage at all.

The viral Australian video, which has already been tagged as 'partly false information' by Instagram, showed a motorist pulling into a drive-through coronavirus testing clinic and asking staff to show him the swab while it was still in its packaging.

The man then pointed out to the healthcare worker that the packet said the swab was coated in 'sterile ethylene oxide' - a chemical used to sterilise medical equipment - before refusing the test and driving away.

While the testing swabs are soaked in ethylene oxide to sterilise them before use, experts said there is not enough of the chemical still on the swabs after the cleaning process to pose a risk to human health. 

'Ethylene oxide is the number one ingredient used in antifreeze. It's a massive carcinogen so it will give you Hodgkin's Lymphoma and greatly increase your chance of breast cancer,' he claimed. 

The man then made the bizarre and completely unfounded claim the chemical 'will f**k with your DNA' and would 'change the structure of your own body'. 

A conspiracy theorist has gone viral online by sharing a widely-discredited video claiming the Covid-19 tests used in Australia will 'alter your DNA'

'Once you inhale it - you can look it up on Google - that's going to kill us. That's actually killing people,' he said. 

The US Food and Drug Administration says about 50 per cent of all medical devices in the country are sterilised in ethylene oxide.

There has never been any evidence nor a single case of such medical devices causing cancer, with the chemical simple used to properly clean them. 

PCR tests are considered the 'gold standard' of Covid-19 testing in Australia and involve a long swab being inserted into the nose and throat of the recipient.

A similar video shared by a conspiracy theorist in the UK showed him misleadingly warn viewers about the dangers of ethylene oxide in coronavirus lateral flow tests - despite this being completely untrue.

'If you're testing your children with this, you're taking a piece of plastic with fibres on the end that's been sterilised using ethylene oxide, which has the ability to cause cancer by damaging DNA,' the man said. 

Testing swabs are cleaned in ethylene oxide to sterilise them before use, but experts have said the amounts of the chemical still on the swabs afterwards pose no risk to human health. Pictured is a Covid-19 test being carried out in Sydney

'I'm begging you to not test your children. It can cause leukaemia. It can cause lymphoma. It can cause breast cancer. They're literally telling us it causes cancer and people are going: "You're a conspiracy theorist".

'Maybe so. But it's not a theory when there's evidence on a government website stating something that's written on the back of the document of the PCR test.'

That video has also been marked as including 'partly false information' by Facebook after being shared to the social media platform.

'There's just not enough [of the chemical] left over; and if it were left over, time and exposure means that any residual ethylene oxide becomes denatured and becomes non-reactive,' UNSW senior medical virologist Professor Bill Rawlinson told AAP FactCheck.

A number of social media posts claim the PCR tests widely used to diagnose COVID-19 contain ethylene oxide, which can cause cancer. 

The posts misleadingly suggest that COVID-19 tests contain the known carcinogen ethylene oxide, which is commonly used to sterilise medical equipment.

Experts told AAP FactCheck that any amounts of the chemical remaining on test swabs after cleansing would be barely detectable and pose no risk to human health.

Since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Australia in January 2020, more than 23million COVID-19 tests have been conducted, according to the Department of Health.

There are three main types of tests used to diagnose COVID-19 infection: rapid antigen tests, serology tests and nucleic acid detection tests. The latter category includes polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, considered the 'gold standard' of testing in Australia.

PCR tests commonly involve the insertion of a long nasal swab into the nose to reach the back of the throat in order to obtain a fluid sample. The swab is then analysed by lab technicians to detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. 

Dr Gaetan Burgio, an expert in genetics and infectious diseases from the Australian National University, told AAP FactCheck that ethylene oxide is used to sterilise PCR swabs in COVID-19 tests to ensure no contaminants are present, but it is not part of the PCR test itself.

Ethylene oxide is a man-made chemical that is often used in gaseous form as a sterilising agent in healthcare and as an ingredient in the manufacturing of industrial products such as polyester.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies the chemical as a 'known human carcinogen', while an International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) document states it is 'mutagenic' or potentially harmful under many conditions (page 5).

The US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) says about 50 per cent of all sterile medical devices in the US are sterilised with ethylene oxide.

Dr Burgio said the sterilisation process consists of vaporising ethylene oxide and using the gas mixture to kill microorganisms.

'The amount of ethylene oxide delivered in the chamber and the residual quantity after sterilisation is tightly monitored as a work health and safety procedure to ensure there is no residual substance left after sterilisation procedure,' he said in an email.

'It means the risk of cancer and DNA mutations from a COVID-19 PCR test is (non-existent).'

Professor Bill Rawlinson, a senior medical virologist from UNSW, told AAP FactCheck in an interview that any residual amounts of ethylene oxide in PCR test swabs would be so tiny they were almost immeasurable.

'There's just not enough left over; and if it were left over, time and exposure means that any residual ethylene oxide becomes denatured and becomes non-reactive,' he said.

A spokeswoman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) told AAP FactCheck the medical regulator assesses products based on standards set by the ISO for health products sterilised using ethylene oxide.

'The manufacturer must show that the final product is safe and does not exceed the limit of ethylene oxide residue in accordance with the international standards,' she said in an email.

'Whilst there is evidence that long-term and/or occupational exposure to ethylene oxide has been linked to cancer, there is a lack of evidence to suggest that residual ethylene oxide exposure from the transient use of ethylene oxide sterilised COVID-19 PCR test swabs causes cancer or DNA mutations.'

The FDA told fact checkers Snopes that it was also important to differentiate between collection swabs and the PCR test itself — which the post wrongly contains ethylene oxide.

'The use of sterilised swabs for collection is not the use of (ethylene oxide) in the test itself… (However), 'EO' written on the swab package does indicate sterilisation of the collection swab with ethylene oxide,' a spokesperson said.

'Ethylene oxide is a commonly used method of medical device sterilisation. It's considered a safe and effective method that helps ensure the safety of medical devices and helps deliver quality patient care.'

The post falsely states that PCR tests contain ethylene oxide. Rather, the chemical, which is correctly identified as a known carcinogen, is used to sterilise swabs commonly used in the testing process.

Any residual ethylene oxide amounts on the swabs are minuscule and pose no risk to human health, multiple experts and health authorities say. 

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